


Of Grief and Loss

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Series: Of Bridges and Shores (Zestiria - AtlA AU) [8]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Avatar Sorey, Bending (Avatar), Dezel gets to be the mentor I always knew he was deep down..., Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Loss, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, but still ish there, the soymilk is lighter in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-15
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24742021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: “Did you hear what the Fire Lord did?”
Relationships: Mikleo/Sorey (Tales of Zestiria)
Series: Of Bridges and Shores (Zestiria - AtlA AU) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1407244
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37





	Of Grief and Loss

**Author's Note:**

> i half debated not posting this one today, but i had finished it and it's ready and it's time 
> 
> i also realized sometimes writing/reading about another character grieving can be cathartic for your own hurt, y'kno? so i would hesitate to read this tho if you're in a sensitive place bc the grieving IS heavy. but it is let out and released and there is someone there who sits through it all so no one has to be alone

This morning had started out fine, hadn’t it? 

Sorey had woken early before the others to learn more airbending. Dezel never wants to use whatever time they could spend traveling and keeping ahead of the always-searching Fire Nation, so Sorey has gotten used to waking before the sun peeks over the tree-tops and learning what he can in those spare young hours when it is just him and his teacher and all of nature. And Sorey had been excited—he _is_ excited—at his progress. Airbending is much, much easier for him than waterbending and he doesn’t know why that is; maybe there’s still something he has yet to learn, but airbending is fun. It’s freeing.

To feel wind spin between his palms like a disk had been exciting. To swing his arms and jump and rattle the branches of the surrounding canopy without touching them at all, sending upward a mad gust of gale had been thrilling. To be so loose and able to channel that endless energy Gramps had always chided him on in such a light and powerful way is incredible.

Dezel had even said once they arrive at the Northern Air Temple, he may be ready to learn how to fly.

“If there are still gliders there after everything,” he hummed with his arms crossed.

And that had been enough. That had given Sorey such hope and excitement for the future that he never thought he could be sad again.

Sorey stares at the expanse of ruined forest now and the way the thickness of the bent, half-splintered cedar trees cloak the distance in shadow for what feels like hours. He blinks slowly once, and then twice. Tension is thick in his shoulders and knots itself in the center of his forehead until he can feel his own temple throb. 

Why is he out here again?

_Did you hear what the Fire Lord did?_

He looks down at his aching feet and swallows. His face tightens and he blinks as the first tears begin to fall. With a heave of air, he sinks to a squat and bows his head between his knees, crossing his forearms over his hair and wondering if the mortified scream building in his chest will break him before the grief racking his heart does.

* * *

“You’re refugees? From the Fire Nation?” The waitress’s voice squeaks as her voice pitches high.

There are a few glares thrown Sorey’s way from across the tavern table, but he doesn’t know what to do under them other than shrug. He was only telling the truth _—_ for the Sparrowfeathers, anyway. And, in a sense, himself. 

He doesn’t like to think about that for too long, though.

Rose sighs and rolls her eyes. “ _We_ are, anyway. But we’re merchants, so we don’t really claim allegiance to any, uh, one nation. We’re just trying to make our way in the world. You know how that is.” 

The waitress clucks her tongue and with a smile, shakes her head. She places their plates of food before each of them, her brows drawn tightly together. “I used to think it was silly when we’d have people like you folks coming through our parts, but after the news of what’s been happening over there…gosh, even I wouldn’t want to be there right now.”

Lailah blinks and straightens in her seat. “What do you mean?”

“Did you hear what the Fire Lord did?” the waitress murmurs. “That man’s gone off the deep end, as far as I’m concerned. Not that any of those Lords have ever been _sane_ to begin with, each of them doing their part to continue and contribute to this foolish war of expansion, but when I heard what he did to the Southern Water Tribe and then his own Fire Sages…” She clucks again and reminds Sorey mildly of a chicken. “There’s cruelty and then there’s _cruelty,_ you know?”

Mikleo’s hands slam against the table and nearly upend their lunch. He rises to his feet. “Wait. What happened to the Southern Water Tribe?”

The waitress stumbles back a step, eyes wide.

Sorey’s hand is on Mikleo’s arm before he can think better of it, his grip tight and desperate.

She swallows. “W-well…word is, the Fire Lord paid a visit there himself, he did.”

“The Fire Lord—” Mikleo’s breath gives out before he can finish. He sags back into his chair, lost and pale. “ _Fire Lord Heldalf_ went to the South Pole himself? In person? Why?”

“There was a rumor going around that his missing Avatar was there, but I’m not sure how true _that_ is. There are lots of rumors about where the Fire Nation’s Avatar is and who they are now; can’t trust that kind of word at all, but I guess he must’ve believed some rumors about the South Pole. I mean, he _did_ find the old Avatar Michael’s sister there, so I don’t know.”

“What?!”

“Things would have ended much worse than they did, if that tyrant hadn’t accepted the rogue Fire Sage and the previous Avatar’s sister as an offer of surrender to spare the tribe, I’m sure.” 

_“He—?!”_

Mikleo’s on his feet again and this time, Sorey doesn’t think he can tug him back down. 

He’s not sure he wants to.

“Course, he just turned around and executed all of his Fire Sages as soon as they returned home. Apparently, about ten years ago or so, the Fire Sages had collaborated behind the Fire Lord’s back to smuggle the Avatar out of the Fire Nation before Heldalf could get his hands on ‘em. It was downright brave…but I guess now it’s cost them their lives.”

“W…what?” Sorey breathes, weakly.

Lailah gasps, sharp and high and hard; a strangled and choked thing. Her hand slaps over her mouth, sea-green eyes glassy and wet. “No…surely not…not _all_ of them? He executed his own Fire Sages?”

The woman nods. Her shoulders sag, features softening in sympathy. “Afraid so, dearie. It was all very public. Advertised everywhere, across the homeland and their colonies. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. I think the Fire Lord wanted the entire world to know what would happen to those who kept the Avatar away from him.”

“The—” Sorey’s voice falters on its way out of his throat. It doesn’t feel real, any of it. “—you’re kidding.”

The woman shakes her head.

And Sorey can’t feel anything but a roar. An earthquake rattles along the faultline of his center and the instant Rose reaches across the table for him, murmuring a quiet and distraught, “Sorey—” the tension snaps out.

“I need air!” he shouts and the wind answers him.

Mikleo is still frozen, standing beside his own chair, but that’s fine. Sorey doesn’t need him to move; he doesn’t wish to bother him when he knows Mikleo, too, is at a loss for words with the news that his mother has been _captured_ by the imperial _Fire Lord_ , and he cannot, he cannot touch that. He cannot diminish that, he doesn’t even know what he would say— _he,_ the person Heldalf is trying so hard to _find_ —the reason she was taken and the reason Gramps is now— 

—he places a hand on the back of his own chair and jumps and the wind carries him, lifts his feet like he was cresting a fence.

He lands a yard away and runs out the door of the tavern and ignores Lailah’s shout at his back of, “Sorey!” and the scrape of chairs against the floor and the crash of plates and alarmed cries and he runs.

* * *

“And here you still are.”

Sorey curls tighter, arms wrapped tightly around himself, as he lies on his side in the middle of his self-made forest clearing. He mumbles an apology he isn’t initially sure Dezel would hear—but it _is_ Dezel, his airbending teacher, one of the last two remaining airbenders left in the world, the man who has always used the wind at his whim to discern the environment he could not see around himself and even though it is night and the crickets and forest life have begun their evening cadence, Dezel huffs and steps closer. 

“Lailah told me that ‘rogue Fire Sage’ the woman mentioned was important to you.”

Sorey flinches. His chest swells with a shaky breath. “Y-yeah.”

“Do you wish to talk about him?”

“I…” Sorey wipes at his face and slides his hand down to grasp at his own arm, hugging himself. “Is Mikleo okay?”

“He needed space to himself for a time. But afterwards, he was able to think more clearly.”

“Oh…that’s good.”

“He believes that there is a good chance the Fire Lord took his mother for a reason, else why would he have been satisfied with the offer of her one life in exchange for the lives and wellbeing of the rest of the tribe? Therefore, he is resting in the comfort that Heldalf sees worth in keeping her alive…for now.”

Sorey swallows. He tilts his head up to see Dezel standing over him. “And _that’s_ supposed to be a comfort?”

“An optimism. I would have thought you of all people would be familiar with such a concept.”

Sorey looks away again and brings his knees up tighter to his chest. He has to swallow down hard on the weak resentment that rises inside himself; it wouldn’t do anyone good to get angry. “I should…shouldn’t I…?”

“Sorey,” Dezel says and drops to a crouch at the boy’s back. His hands dangle in the space between his bent knees. 

Sorey swallows. At the growing, swelling silence, almost expectant in nature, he tightly says, “I used to call him ‘Gramps.’ He practically raised me after we moved to the South Pole. I didn’t—I didn’t know he was a Fire Sage, really; not until he told me I was the Avatar. There were so many things he never told me about himself. I had no idea—I didn’t know what he gave up in order for—” Sorey’s breath hitched. “—he did so much for me, Dezel. For all of us. And I’m never going to be able to see him again to tell him thank you or how much I love him.”

Dezel’s voice rumbles warmly behind him. “If he was as close to you as you say, then he most likely already knew.”

“But did he?” Sorey’s voice pitches oddly; too high. He can barely talk with the too little air squeezing past his throat. “I think that’s the worst part, Dezel. I didn’t even get to tell him goodbye. I didn’t—what was the last thing I said to him? I can’t remember. I can’t remember if it was good enough.”

Dezel hums, a patient and quiet sound.

“I can’t change it now. I haven’t—” Sorey shoves his face into his hands and hiccups. “—I didn’t even get to see him after everything f-fell apart back home. At the South Pole. I had been kidnapped and when Mikleo and Lailah rescued me, we—we had to leave. We couldn’t go back. I didn’t—I never knew if he was okay or if something happened to him or if the tribe was angry at him or if he was worried about me or—I n-never got to tell him _goodbye_ —”

Dezel says nothing, but the hand on his shoulder, warm and broad and weathered, is enough.

Sorey curls tighter and sobs and it’s like a fishhook has been sunken into his gut and is now yanked upwards, tearing up with it new wounds, making him bleed with every pent up fear and grief and _yearning_ and never getting to _resolve_ that loss, but instead, being forced to suffer _more_ of it. Sorey wonders if this is what sorrow is supposed to feel like. Is it supposed to be so ugly and so bad? 

“I was hoping so, so much that when this was all over, I would have been able to go back. I just wanted—want—to be able to see him again! To talk…! I didn’t get to say goodbye…!”

Dezel’s hand squeezes just the once. “So you’ve said.”

He doesn’t say another word; neither does Sorey, though his mouth works endlessly over and over again as if he wanted to. Trying to put into substance the width and vastness of the endless _regret_ and _now-never’s_ so loud inside of him.

Sorey cries and cries, and it feels so inhuman to be made something of such unfixable grief.

* * *

“Dezel?” 

“Hm?” 

It feels like hours must have passed in which Sorey laid in his little ball on the forest floor. When he pushes himself up, his joints whine and ache. The heels of his hands dig into the soil. He takes one glance to his mentor and immediately wants to look away to wipe at his tear-crusted cheeks until he remembers the man doesn’t—can’t—care about something as trivial as a red and splotchy face. 

Sorey swallows. “W…what should I do?”

“That’s not the question on your mind right now.”

“No,” Sorey agrees and his shoulders slump.

As if reading his mind, Dezel crosses his arms over his chest and frowns. “But you are right. Turning yourself in would be foolish and accomplish nothing.”

“W-would it?” Sorey’s head snaps up. “What if it keeps people from dying? What if it saves Mikleo’s mom? What if no one else has to get hurt because of Fire Lord Heldalf? You heard what the lady said. Gramps’ death was a message! Because of me! If I run away from him, w-wouldn’t that—”

“—give worth to all of the Fire Sages’ sacrifice?”

Sorey stops, caught frozen with his mouth open like he had been about to object.

Dezel continues, leaning forward intently. “Sorey. I understand that the loss you have suffered is great and to avoid more deaths, you would be willing to offer yourself as peace. But turning yourself in would be exactly what the Fire Lord wants and, in the same breath, undo everything the Fire Sages gave their lives for. Your Fire Sage—Zenrus—did not die so you could roll over like a complacent _dog_ the moment he was gone.”

Sorey flinches.

“Stop acting as if he was your spine.”

“But—”

“—I’m not saying he wasn’t important to you. But can you imagine how hurt he would be to hear that you wanted to give up everything he wanted for you, for our world, because you lost your courage the instant he died?”

Sorey doesn’t know what to say. His fingers dig into the dirt. His mouth works, but no words come.

“Find it. Find whatever bravery you have in you because _this_ is the moment that will make you, Sorey. Not the suffering. Not that you lost him, but what you do after he is gone. You can either continue to sit here and feel sorry, or you can stand up and _do_ something. Take what you feel and rise. No one ever said anger and hurt were helpless, bad things.”

Sorey swallows.

Dezel waits.

“Why aren’t you leaving me alone?” Sorey says through a tight throat. 

“As your teacher, I will not turn my back and give you the chance to do something stupid.”

“You think I would?”

“I think you have proven you have every proclivity to.” Dezel pauses then adds, softer, “And…I know something, more than you think, about what grief can drive people to do. Especially when they are left to their own devices.”

Sorey lifts his head and looks to Dezel. “That…makes me worried about Mikleo. His mom…” 

“They are fair things to worry about,” Dezel murmurs.

“What would you do if I said I wanted to rescue her?”

Dezel tilts his head. His mouth pinches into a thin, unhappy line, but he doesn’t challenge Sorey. Instead, he asks, “I would ask how you plan on doing that.”

So Sorey turns and when he places his hands into the dirt this time, he pushes himself up to his feet. His hands, dirty and rough, tighten into fists at his sides. He doesn’t try to pat off the mud caked to his palms. “Okay, good, because as long as you’re not saying ‘no,’ I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ I think I have an idea.”

**Author's Note:**

> and of course, there's hope
> 
> [tw](https://twitter.com/kissykrissey) / [tblr](https://somefinelipstickonthatpig.tumblr.com/)


End file.
